Old Bailey jury convicts Simon Levy of two murders

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Simon Levy was first jailed for sexual violence in 2021. While in prison, he sexually assaulted a female prison officer. Photograph: Elizabeth Cook/PA theguardian.com

Sheryl Wilkins (left) and Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo. Composite: Metropolitan police/Family handout/PA theguardian.com

Metropolitan Police apologise for "system failure' as Simon Levy found guilty of double murder of two women standard.co.uk

<p>Undated handout photo issued by Metropolitan Police of Simon Levy. Serial sex attacker Simon Levy, 40, has been found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering two women and raping a third. Issue date: Friday August 07, 2026.</p> standard.co.uk

Simon Levy attacked women on the Tube (British Transport Police/PA) standard.co.uk

Sheryl Wilkins, 39, was killed in High Road, Tottenham, on August 24 last year (Family handout/PA) standard.co.uk

<p>Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo </p> standard.co.uk

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A London jury at the Old Bailey has found Simon Levy guilty of murdering two women and raping and attacking a third, after a sequence of bail decisions and investigative delays left him free. According to The Guardian, Levy had previously been jailed for sexual violence in 2021 and later assaulted a female prison officer while in custody, yet went on to commit a run of attacks in London after his release.

The case is less a single failure than a chain of handoffs where no one actor pays the full cost of getting it wrong. Police forces and prosecutors each acknowledged errors: the Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have all apologised in some form, but the operational reality described in the reporting is that missed steps and slow processes translated directly into more time at liberty. The Guardian reports that Levy was arrested months before the first killing for sexual assaults on trains, but delays in charging followed. The Evening Standard adds that delays around identification procedures extended his bail into 2025, and that he was not identified after an earlier assault on the Underground.

Once a suspect is released, the system tends to treat “risk” as paperwork rather than a constraint. The Guardian reports that Levy was on bail as a suspect for the first murder when he committed the second, and that prosecutors later admitted bungling efforts to have him remanded in custody. Key information about his danger to women was not provided to multiple court hearings, the paper reports, even as the alleged pattern escalated. The Standard describes internal criticism of investigative performance, with individual officers removed from investigative duties, while also reporting that they would not face disciplinary action or a watchdog investigation.

The effect is that warnings become retrospective. A senior Metropolitan Police officer told The Guardian that one victim would “probably have been alive” without “collective system failures”. But the same structure that distributes decisions across agencies also distributes accountability: one organisation can cite evidentiary thresholds, another can cite court timetables, and a third can cite what it was or wasn’t told.

Levy is due to be sentenced next week. The jury’s verdict closes the criminal trial, but it does not change the fact that the second murder occurred while the state had already arrested him and then let him out again.